Before we want to make any reports we have to make sure we can publish reports on the Pentaho BI server. Pentaho keeps this password in the file “publish_config.xml” found in pentaho-solutions/system/. Default this password is blank… but I will make it the same as the Pentaho default:

You should know that this file is in the pentaho-solutions directory which is usually made readable for everyone. In a production environment further action must be taken to secure the BI server.

Reportdesign

There are several ways to create Pentaho reports:

Using the design studio (PDS)

Using the report designer (PRD)

Using the report design wizard

Using the online AdHoc Reporting tool (WAQR)

Number 3 and 4 are maybe useful for end users, but have limited capabilities to create reports as an alternative against the commercial tools. The report design wizard can be executed from the design studio and report designer. In this example I will use the report design wizard only because it’s the quickest way to create a good looking example:

Start the report designer

Start Report Design Wizard under file menu or press CTRL-Shift-n

The report design wizard opens with step 1. Choose a title and description (”films”, “list of films”), press next.

choose connection type JNDI an click Add, make it something like this (fill in your specific username/password and test it):

This was just a very short howto and this example isn’t very useful, but it will guide you in the right direction. Next things todo can be: design (dynamic) parameter driver reports, create your own solution repository, dashboard design…